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Fitness Finds at the Library

January 21, 2013

Alternate title: How I lost weight using the library materials and services

WHAT?!

Most people know the library offers books and programs, but if you haven’t been to your local library or library website, there might be stuff you’re missing, like subscription-based services aka your library pays for access to services like ebooks, digital magazines, music downloads and videos.

21st Century digital stuff, what?!

Freegal is a music service, sold to libraries. You can download them to your computer or there is an iPhone app.

I’m able to download five songs a week through my libraries Freegal subscription. It’s the Sony music catalog, so not every song is available, but you should be able to find something to add to your workout playlist.

Cincinnati, Boone (KY) and Kenton (KY) libraries have Freegal so if you’re a library cardholder, take advantage.

Zinio bills itself as the world’s largest newsstand and with my library card and app, I’m able to read a whole host of magazines like Shape, Women’s Health and Cosmo. With the fitness magazines, I bookmark or screencap workouts I want to do at home or at the gym.

I access this through Kenton (KY) library, but if your library doesn’t offer it, you can pay for the service.

Universal Class is a database of 500 courses on a variety of topics. I am taking a class on nutrition and I saw one on weight training.

Cincinnati, Clermont (OH) and Boone (KY) libraries offer access.

Rdio was a service I learned about when it was marketed to libraries, but apparently no longer is, which is a shame. I was able to enjoy a free subscription for about 8 months and I loved it, but I’m not enough to subscribe for $9.99 a month. I had access to all this music that I wouldn’t normally purchase and every couple of workouts, I could make a new playlist instead of having to troll through my iTunes looking for songs.

This service would be great for fitness instructors or my spinning instructors so they can change up those (stale) workout mixes every once in a while.

If you want to get back to basics, check out the stacks for books and DVDs related to fitness, nutrition, weight training, how to become a runner, yoga and more.